2001-12-23 マレーネ・ディートリヒ
ディートリッヒと監督スタンーバーグの関係を描いたところが興味深いところです。
4)01-12-23 NYT ニューヨークタイムズ
「ディートリヒは100歳；カメラの真の恋人」by
David Thomson
彼女は木曜日に100歳になったであろう、または1000歳となるのか？ 彼女の顔は古い寺院の壁に、時間を超えて、神秘的に、いかがわしく表されるであろう。現代の写真においては、グラマーさ、いや精神性の典型であろう。
しかしその中に強い精神が隠れていることはMarlene
Dietrichのひるんだ、ただの写真がないことからもわかる。
彼女は"The Devil Is a Woman"に出演したが、その役柄の不公平に苦情は述べなかった。とるに足りない映画に出演しても彼女の眼差しには悪魔性が潜んでいた。同時に彼女は、ケーキを焼く、暖かく、普通に振る舞いたいと望んでいた。
非常に若い人を除いて、ディートリヒを映画で落ち着いたじらすようなルックから、邪悪なベルリン、パラマウントの輝く時代、戦争、ラスベガス、それからしのびよる老年との最後の戦いで表にでなくなった時代を覚えているであろう。
Jean-Jacques Naudetが編集した新本,"Marlene
Dietrich;Photographs and Memories(Knopf)"では、1930年代始めの我々が見た事がない新しい写真が多く含まれている。
その写真は彼女の発見者で、恍惚のまた惨めなもっとも見捨てられた愛人となった監督Josef
von Sternbergが撮ったものである。
彼女はレンズをまっすぐ見つめ、フォン・スタンバーグが彼女に何も考えるな、全ての表情を取り去れと言っているのが想像出来る。この本には、多くのありのままの写真が掲載されているが、１つの美しいスナップショットがある。
1945年にベルリンで取られたもので、軍服姿で米軍やロシア軍のバッジを胸に付けているものである。メークアップはほとんどなく髪もすこし乱れている。当時44歳で、愛人の男がとった写真である。
彼女の娘で唯一の子供であるMaria Rivaはがこの本で素晴らしい説明をしている。「彼女の表情の柔らかさから、この写真は彼女が愛した恋人、多分、アメリカ兵により撮られた」であろうと述べている。相手は将軍か、多分、オープンな幸せな表情から普通のGIかもしれない。よく見る大スターの表情には、珍しい親切さが見られる。
一方、彼女の親切さについてはまた出版されたばかりの本、"The
Diaries of Kenneth Tynan"に逸話が示されている。
1962年の秋のワシントンであり、通常の時ではなかった。彼女はキャバレーに出演中であった。キューバ・ミサイル危機の前か最中かは正確には不明である。彼女は60歳であった。ベルリンの壁が作られ、彼女の生活で重要であったGary
CooperとHemingwayが死去した年である。
人生は続いていた。ケネディ大統領が、ホワイトハウスに来るように伝言した。彼女は到着したが、ユダヤ復員軍人のディナーが１時間先に予約されていた。彼は慌てて、急ぐ圧力があったが、歴史によると彼はhurrierであった。彼は背中が悪くバンドのサポートをしていた。彼よりもずっと年長でありうまくいけるか彼女は心配であったが、うまくいった。彼が眠りにつくまえに、私の父と行ったことがあるかと尋ねたので、彼に正直にノーと答えた。私は、もしそうであっても彼女はノーと答えたと思う。
ディートリヒの100年を記念して映画はDVDで1930年のThe
Blue Angelを発売し、0ターナー古典映画は、木曜日に彼女の孫のJ.
David Rivaが監督した"Marlene Dietrich;
Her Own Song"を放映する。彼女のナチとの闘いを焦点としたものである。
彼女は、映画のキャリアでも困難にしばしば直面した。1920年代の後半でも、"The
Blue Angel"のLola Lolaの役割はスターンバーグが強力に推薦してやっと選ばれた。
ハリウッドでもモロッコや上海特急という驚くべきモダンな映画は､1935年にはその運命論的なトーンで、大衆には受入れられなかった。バラィエティ誌は彼女をボックス・オフィス・ポイズンと呼んだ。
彼女は、Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Bette
Davisのレベルのスターには決して達しなかった。彼女は異国情緒の、Cheshire-cutの眉毛と男装で有名であった。
彼女はスターンバーグの映画の後にも、大作に出演し、あるものはヒット､1939年のDestry
Ride Again,さえした。1958年のTouch of Evilは素晴らしいディートリヒの映画であるが、Orson
Wellsの慢心した警官の最後を見つめる目には1945年のスナップの暖かさは消え去っている。
彼女はスタンバーグから、自らを知ることを学んでいたのであろう。Touch
of Evilの数年前から、ラスベガスの方が良いのではないかと、考えていた。
Maurice Chavalier及びNoel Cowardといった友人の警告を聞かずに、彼女はVegasに行き、Eddie
FisherやTallulah Bankheadの演技を学んだ。
1953年12月に52歳で、サハラホテルのコンゴ・ルームで週給3万＄でショーを開いた。当時、最高のギャラであった。
彼女はショーでは照明から全てを自らで取り仕切った。衣装には大変に気をつかった。Maria
Rivaがいみじくも語るように「彼女は裸にはならなかったが、完全に体をカバーした」。
Touch of Evil後には、映画では1961年のJudgement
at Nurembergが最も記録に残るものに過ぎない。彼女のキャリアは、ステージのライブとなった。彼女はJudy
GarlandやBarbra Streisandのような素晴らしい歌手ではなかった。彼女の音域は狭く、彼女自身もレパートリに飽きてきた。しかし、彼女はショーに出演することに大変な喜びを感じ、驚くべきコスチュームを付けて出、さり気なく彼女の素晴らしい脚線美を見せた。
彼女は種々の場所でショーを演じた。彼女の歌は、The
Boys in the Backroom, The Laziest Gal in
Town, I Wish You Love, Falling in Love Again,
Lili Marlene, Where Have all the Flowers
Gone, であり全てスローソングで、悲しく、ドイツ語のアクセントで歌われた。その嘆きは、彼女の派手なコスチュームとは合わなかった。
勿論、長続きはせず､1975年にはシドニーでステージから落下して腰を痛めた。その後も転落して、ショーを止めた。１年後に、彼女の夫のRudolph
Sieberが79歳で死亡した。彼らは別居していた。彼は他の女性と住んでおり、彼女と同様に多くの情事を持っていた。スターンバーグやLola-Lolaの前の1923年に結婚してたが、ディートリヒは離婚を考えない思慮深さがあった。彼女が真に愛したのはSieberのみ、若い時に生まれた単純な、純粋の愛であり、後には彼女のソフィスティケーションで脇に押し遣られたが、放棄はされなかった。
シーバーの死で、彼女の隠遁生活が始まった。パリのAvenue
Montaigneのアパートに根を降ろした。俳優Maximilian
Schellが彼女のテーマにドキュメンタリーを撮ろうと、インタビューをしようとしたが断り、声のみで出演し､1984年にMarleneとして公開された。1992年5月6日に90歳で同アパートで死亡、遺体はベルリンに運ばれ、母親の隣に埋葬された。
彼女は誰？どんな人であったのか？ 彼女から何を得るのか？
彼女は死ぬほど写真を撮られたとシェルに語った。Tynanは彼女はデプレッションに悩まされていたと述べた。
文化面では、彼女は同性愛の教会の聖者となった。ジェンダーのクロスオーバーの例である。彼女は男のみならず女性も愛した。1950年代のショーを見て、セックスはあるがジェンダーはないとの評が出た。
スタンバーグは彼女をドイツの凡庸さからアメリカのスターに変えた。彼は彼女を崇拝していた。彼女が如何に多くの健康なブルジョワ的食欲を多くのたくましい男と取り巻きの助手に広げても（情事の相手としてDouglas
Fairbanks Jr., John Wayne, Jean Gabin, Yul
Brynner, 音楽家Friedrich Hollaender,衣装家Travis
Banton, 演奏家Burt Bacharach、これらはリストの始まりにすぎない）。
二人はお互いに必要としていた。彼のキャリアは、自身の傲慢さのために崩れ去った。彼女は自らのキャリアを別の面で発展された。
彼は1965年の奇妙な自伝,"Fun in a Chinese
Laundry"において彼女の多弁を叱っている。彼女との騒動が終った後に作られた多くの映画の撮影シーンの最後にマイクで「どこにジョーがいるか」とささやいたと書いている。
いずれにしても彼が我々に彼女の驚異のイメージを与えてくれた。多分、彼は彼女のなかの何かを殺したのか、傷を残したのかもしれない。しかし彼は、彼の望んだ永遠のライフを彼女に与えたのであろう。
＜本文記事の抜粋＞
In 1933, von Sternberg wrote her a letter
that gets very close to what really happened
between them: "Doesn't it bore you to
hear over and over again the lament of my
longing and my love for you? The beauty of
your voice, the scent of your hair, the magic
of your movement, the play of your eyes,
your silken skin, the touch of your hands,
your awesome brow, if only you knew what
it would mean to me if I could just reach
out to touch you - and soon - this seems
such an endless time away - I will stand
before you - and my dumb eyes will look at
you, gently and truly, and no sign will be
allowed to show you the passion of my adoration
for you nor the witches' cauldron of my feelings
- so you won't be scared away. I have once
again said too much. Only a supernatural
being can take so much adulation and you
are so beautifully human."
May 7, 1992
OBITUARY
Marlene Dietrich, 90, Symbol of Glamour,
Dies
By PETER B. FLINT
The Associated Press
The late German-born actress Marlene Dietrich
is seen in this 1933 file photo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marlene Dietrich, the magnetic movie star
and singer who was an international symbol
of glamour and sex for more than half a century,
died yesterday at her home in Paris. She
was 90 years old.
In her films and record-breaking cabaret
performances, Miss Dietrich artfully projected
cool sophistication, self-mockery and infinite
experience. Her sexuality was audacious,
her wit was insolent and her manner was ageless.
With a world-weary charm and a diaphanous
gown showing off her celebrated legs, she
was the quintessential cabaret entertainer
of Weimar-era Germany.
The Dietrich image, personified by Lola-Lola,
the seductive cabaret singer in top hat and
silk stockings whom she portrayed in "The
Blue Angel," was that of a liberated
woman of the world who chose her men, earned
her own living and viewed sex as a challenge.
Audiences were captivated by this creature
out of no one's experience but out of everyone's
imagination.
'Most Vulnerable Fantasies'
Her manner, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote,
was that of "a serpentine lasso whereby
her voice casually winds itself around our
most vulnerable fantasies."
"She has sex but no positive gender,"
Tynan wrote. "Her masculinity appeals
to women and her sexuality to men."
Her friend Maurice Chevalier said: "Dietrich
is something that never existed before and
may never exist again. That's a woman."
The Dietrich image was born in the Berlin
of the 1920's, when she appeared in plays,
cabaret, and film roles of varying importance
(she was an extra in G. W. Pabst's 1925 "Joyless
Street," which featured Greta Garbo).
Her mentor, the American director Josef von
Sternberg, made her an international star
with "The Blue Angel," which was
filmed in 1930 in both German and English.
Although in the movie's offstage scenes her
5-foot-5-inch frame seemed a bit blowzy and
her manner a bit too Teutonic, her portrayal
of Lola-Lola, who degrades and destroys an
infatuated elderly professor (Emil Jannings),
won her a Hollywood contract. She shed 30
pounds, and in six more von Sternberg movies
the director and his star molded the legend.
Her hair became a golden blond, makeup and
lighting made her cheekbones and nose appear
patrician, and her dreamy blue eyes were
framed by thinly penciled, sweepingly arched
brows.
Perhaps the best description of her face
was provided by Erich Maria Remarque, her
longtime friend, in his novel "Arch
of Triumph":
"The cool, bright face that didn't ask
for anything, that simply existed, waiting
-- it was an empty face, he thought; a face
that could change with any wind of expression.
One could dream into it anything. It was
like a beautiful empty house waiting for
carpets and pictures. It had all possibilities
-- it could become a palace or a brothel."
A Lifelong Task Of Creating an Image
Working with von Sternberg, the actress became
a thorough professional and perfectionist,
expert in makeup, lighting, clothes and film
editing. In later decades, she repeatedly
had cosmetic surgery to keep her face taut,
and adroitly had herself filmed with soft-focus,
gauze-covered lenses.
"Glamour," she observed, "is
assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you
are all right in every way, mentally and
physically and in appearance, and that, whatever
the occasion or the situation, you are equal
to it."
In clothes, she was a trend setter. Both
on screen and off, she often wore trousers
and mannish costumes. By proving that a woman
could still look feminine in such clothes,
she established "the Dietrich silhouette,"
emphasizing trimness and inconspicuous hips
and bust.
The Dietrich-von Sternberg collaboration
produced "Morocco" (1930), in which
Miss Dietrich, again a cabaret singer, spurns
and then pursues a French legionnaire (Gary
Cooper) in the Sahara; "Dishonored"
(1931), about a spy who betrays her country
for love of a worthless man (Victor McLaglen),
and "Shanghai Express" (1932),
a melodrama in which she is a China Coast
prostitute who offers herself to a warlord
(Warner Oland) to save the life of a former
lover (Clive Brook).
The last three Dietrich-von Sternberg films
were "Blonde Venus" (1932), a mother-love
soap opera; "The Scarlet Empress"
(1934), an opulent and visually stunning
melodrama about a lascivious Catherine the
Great, and "The Devil Is a Woman"
(1935), an erotic tale about a soldier-corrupting
vamp in turn-of-the-century Seville.
Because it displayed her beauty most effectively,
"The Devil Is a Woman" was her
particular favorite. But it angered Spanish
officials, at whose demand Paramount Pictures
soon withdrew it and destroyed the master
print. Miss Dietrich gave her own print of
the film to the Museum of Modern Art in New
York, where it is shown frequently.
The von Sternberg movies were increasingly
self-indulgent, lyrical, exotic romances
with pallid plots that trapped the actress
in elaborate decor and special effects. They
were losing a fortune, so Paramount's top
executives, to protect their big investment
in Miss Dietrich, barred von Sternberg from
directing her again.
Seeking variety, she made her first comedy,
"Desire," in 1936. It was a satire
about an urbane jewel thief who steals a
choice necklace from a Parisian jeweler and,
in efforts to keep it, becomes involved with
a hayseed Detroit engineer (Gary Cooper).
A second comedy, "Destry Rides Again,"
a 1939 spoof of the Old West, was even more
successful. The actress, as a freewheeling
saloon entertainer, seduces a valiant sheriff
(James Stewart) and has a hair-pulling, face-pummeling
brawl with a competitor (Una Merkel).
Miss Dietrich was a Berliner who was an early
and passionate opponent of Nazism. When Hitler
started arresting Jews, she financed the
escape of several friends. Rejects Germany;
Films Are Banned
In 1937, while filming the melodrama "Knight
Without Armour" in England, she was
approached by agents of Hitler offering her
an almost blank check to return to Germany
to star in movies of her choice. She angrily
rejected the offer, and her films were banned
in Germany. Soon after, she applied for American
citizenship, which was granted in 1939.
During World War II, Miss Dietrich became
somewhat of a symbol of free Germany. She
made anti-Nazi broadcasts in German, took
part in many war-bond drives and, in three
years, entertained half a million Allied
troops and war prisoners across North Africa
and Western Europe. Tirelessly and good-humoredly,
she roughed it with the G.I.'s, standing
patiently in food lines, washing with snow
and sleeping in dugouts and ruins, often
near the front lines. She sang her movie
songs, the international wartime ballad "Lili
Marlene" and some current songs, and
even played a musical saw, a skill she had
mastered for the Berlin stage. The troops
loved her.
After the war, she was awarded the Medal
of Freedom, the highest civilian honor the
United States Government bestows. France
named her a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
and Belgium dubbed her a Knight of the Order
of Leopold.
Her most noteworthy movie roles after the
war were as an exotic gypsy in Mitchell Leisen's
"Golden Earrings" (1947), with
Ray Milland; a manipulative Berlin cabaret
singer in Billy Wilder's "Foreign Affair"
(1948); a saloon manager hiding outlaws in
Fritz Lang's "Rancho Notorious"
(1952); a duplicitous wife in Mr. Wilder's
"Witness for the Prosecution" (1958);
a cynical brothel-keeper in Orson Welles's
"Touch of Evil" (1958) and an aristocratic
widow in Stanley Kramer's "Judgment
at Nuremberg" (1961).
"Touch of Evil" provided Miss Dietrich
with one of her most memorable lines. She
admonished the character played by the corpulent
Welles to "lay off the candy bars."
Her last film was a small part in the forgettable
1979 melodrama called "Just a Gigolo."
In 1986, Maximilian Schell made a documentary
about her, entitled "Marlene";
she did not appear on screen because of vanity,
but she was interviewed and her voice is
heard almost continuously.
Miss Dietrich began her cabaret performances
in 1954, and for more than two decades, for
fees up to $30,000 a week, she hypnotized
audiences in such disparate cities as London,
Las Vegas, Paris, New York, Montreal, Johannesburg
and Tokyo and Tel Aviv (where she sang in
German with some apprehension, but with stunning
success). Her manner matched her movie image:
at once intimate and elusive.
In 1960, also with trepidation about wartime
animosities, she sang in Berlin. There were
a few hecklers, but the vast majority of
Berliners welcomed her home.
To keep her shows up to date, she interspersed
the nostalgia with new songs, and in 1963
she performed in London with -- or perhaps
against -- the youthful Beatles.
Marie Magdalene Dietrich was born in Berlin
on Dec. 27, 1901. Her father, Louis Erich
Otto Dietrich, who was a police lieutenant
and a former cavalry major, died when she
was 9 years old.
Her mother was Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine
Felsing, the daughter of a well-to-do watch
merchant, who soon after being widowed, married
Edouard von Losch, a cavalry lieutenant.
He was killed on the Russian front in 1918.
The young Marie Magdalene and her elder sister,
Elisabeth, were brought up strictly in an
upper-middle-class Prussian home. Marie Magdalene
attended a private school in Weimar, studied
French and took violin lessons, hoping for
a concert career. But when she was 18, a
hand injury threatened that dream and she
decided to try dramatics, contracting her
two given names to Marlene because her family
disapproved of acting.
She failed an audition with Max Reinhardt
and joined the chorus of a touring musical
revue. A year later, she passed a second
audition and was admitted to Reinhardt's
drama school.
Soon after, she won small roles on the stage
and in German films. Her only substantial
role was in the film "Tragedy of Love"
(1923). She was assigned the part by Rudolph
Sieber, a young Czechoslovak production assistant.
They were married on May 17, 1924, and the
next year had a daughter, Maria.
After the early years of their marriage,
Mr. Sieber was rarely seen with his wife.
He held movie jobs in New York and Hollywood
and, in 1953, became a chicken farmer in
California in the San Fernando Valley. They
never divorced, but lived apart for most
of their remaining years. He died in 1975.
In the late 1920's, Miss Dietrich won increasingly
important leading roles on the German stage
and was likened in the German press to Greta
Garbo
A Director's Search For a Cruel Temptress
In early 1930, von Sternberg arrived in Berlin
to make "The Blue Angel," based
on the Heinrich Mann novel "Professor
Unrat." The director had been searching
for an actress who could exude the electric
eroticism of the movie's cruel temptress.
He saw Miss Dietrich in a play and knew his
search was over.
Two decades later, the actress was referred
to by the press as "the world's most
glamorous grandmother." Her daughter,
also an actress, married William Riva, a
scenic artist, in 1947, and had four sons.
Miss Dietrich was often seen with her grandsons
in Manhattan, wheeling their carriages in
Central Park, later seeing them off to camp
at Grand Central Terminal and even carrying
their laundry.
She was deeply devoted to her family, worked
hard to advance her daughter's career and
helping her daughter and son-in-law financially.
To be with her family, Miss Dietrich lived
in Manhattan when not touring, but in 1972
she moved her chief residence from Park Avenue
to Paris, where she lived in a four-room
apartment on Avenue Montaigne, in the Eighth
Arrondissement.
She was a close friend of many famous people,
including Ernest Hemingway and Sir Alexander
Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. She
also had widely reported love affairs with
the writer Erich Maria Remarque and the actors
Jean Gabin, Michael Wilding and Douglas Fairbanks
Jr. "I've always been attracted to intelligent
men," she once said. "I can pick
'em in a full room, just like that. I don't
care what age they are."
Miss Dietrich kept in touch with friends
around the world by telephone and letter.
She often cooked delicacies for friends,
as well as for stagehands and doormen. Her
specialties included goulash and apple strudel.
She was also knowledgeable about antiques,
and owned paintings by Delacroix, Cezanne,
Utrillo and Corot.
A Faith in Astrology, For Herself and Others
Deeply influenced by astrology, she regularly
had horoscopes prepared for friends. On that
subject, she once remarked: "Astrology!
Of course. After all, everyone knows that
the moon pulls the sea away from the land,
and farmers don't plant when the moon is
wrong.
"Why should humans escape?"
She granted occasional interviews to friendly
journalists, but over the years she grew
impatient with those who asked questions
she regarded as stupid or pointless.
In her memoirs, "Marlene Dietrich's
ABC," published in 1962, she wrote:
"Once a woman has forgiven her man,
she must not reheat his sins for breakfast."
Miss Dietrich, who stopped performing in
the mid-1970's, lived the last years of her
life as a virtual recluse in her Paris apartment.
A photograph of her in "Shanghai Express"
was chosen to publicize this year's Cannes
International Film Festival, which starts
Thursday. The poster adorns billboards all
over France.
FAZ 2001.12.23
From There To Eternity
By Andreas Kilb
On a concert tour in Japan just before Christmas
in 1974, Marlene Dietrich lodged at the Imperial
Hotel in Tokyo. When she arrived in her suite,
she handed the staff a list of her wishes.
She demanded: 12 wastebaskets, 37 suitcase
stands, an ironing board, an electric typewriter
with American keyboard, 24 notepads with
pencils, a stove, a pot, spring water for
cooking, replacement lightbulbs and the address
of a good Japanese restaurant.
Before leaving the hotel for her concert
in the evening, she cleaned the bedroom,
disinfected the bathroom, -- which nobody
except her was allowed to set foot in --
and put the filled wastebaskets into the
corridor. As was true of all the suites she
stayed in when on tour, the one at the Imperial
had two bathtubs: one for bathing, the other
for the countless bouquets she received.
She never read the greeting cards that came
with them.
Then she emerged on stage. Dietrich was 72
at the time, but in the light that made her
swan-feather coat gleam, she looked ageless.
Her walk was a little more stilted than before
the hip and leg operations of that year,
but her voice ran fluidly through her songs
like water: "Blonde Women," "Where
Have All the Flowers Gone," "Lili
Marlene," "Autumn Leaves"
and "Blowin' in the Wind." Of course,
she also sang the tune that had made her
famous, her song of songs: "Falling
in Love Again."
Her performance lasted for a little more
than an hour, then she said goodbye to the
audience, who thunderously applauded her,
and went back to her suite. The basin of
hot water that she used to bathe her aching
feet had already been prepared. She removed
her make-up and the adhesive strips that
had been attached to her scalp with sterile
needles in order to smooth her face and again
became the old woman that she actually was.
Out of all the great movie stars, Marlene
Dietrich's goodbye was the longest. For over
20 years, until the accident in Sydney in
September 1975 that ended her stage career,
she performed in concert halls all over the
world, relentlessly chasing her own legend,
which was simultaneously chasing her. While
companions, lovers and rivals from her most
successful years -- Josef von Sternberg,
Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier,
Jean Gabin, Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest
Hemingway -- had long retired or passed away,
Dietrich was still addicted to fame. She
fell several times, recovered -- and kept
on performing. Only when her legs failed
and left her with no hope of further performing
did she write her memoirs. She died in Paris
in 1992. Next Thursday she would have celebrated
her 100th birthday.
In this endless epilogue to her acting career
-- one of the most spectacular in movie history
-- she repeated her early days in memorable
fashion. Despite the legend, Dietrich did
not appear out of the blue to film Sternberg's
"The Blue Angel" in 1930. Instead,
she had persistently pursued her stage and
film career for eight years, from early 1922
to late 1929. In the end, she had become
a decently successful actress with leading
parts in Kurt Bernhardt's "The Woman
Men Yearn For" and Maurice Tourneur's
"The Ship of the Lost" and had
had several appearances in stage plays. The
woman Sternberg saw playing an American millionairess
in a Berlin revue in September 1929 was not
a beginner, but a tough and determined professional.
And "she possessed something I hadn't
expected," the director noted some decades
later.
In the seven movies he subsequently made
with Dietrich, Sternberg examined this "something"
a little more closely. It was sex. Not the
tame, narcissistic, muscular act we associate
with the term today, but something more dangerous:
the glitter of projection. Perhaps only those
who have been absent from the fitness studio
for a while can understand what "Shanghai
Express" (1932), "The Scarlet Empress"
(1934) and "The Devil Is a Woman"
(1935) are really about. The sexual act is
not rewarded with money or kind words, but
with self-destruction, lawlessness and death.
What movies today necessarily equate with
desire -- naked flesh -- is completely lacking.
Instead we see a woman's face on the screen,
with eyes that look directly into ours. The
silent movie queens, even Garbo in her early
films, could only act this look. Dietrich
was the first to actually live it: Her eyes
are her sword. As future Czarina Catherine
I, she wins the rebellious officers over
by carefully looking them up and down, with
a dramatic pause on their waistbands.
In "The Devil Is a Woman," the
movie that finally caused Sternberg to fall
from favor with both Paramount Studios and
its audiences, her face is the white crest
in a sea of silk fans, mantillas, castanets,
sombreros, serpentines and confetti. Sternberg
shaped the Spanish police officer, who loses
all his pride when he succumbs to the charms
of dancer Concha, after himself. This time,
he did not even try to conceal the autobiographical
aspects of the story. For five long years,
he had unsuccessfully courted the woman whose
image he immortalized as a director. Now
he would let her go. When Luis Bunuel adapted
the Pierre Louys novel "The Devil Is
a Woman" for the screen a second time
in the 1970s, he called the result "That
Obscure Object of Desire."
In the autumn of 1982, Maximilian Schell
visited Dietrich in her apartment in Paris.
He showed her the scene from "Blonde
Venus" (1932) in which she enters the
stage of a nightclub in an ape costume, exchanges
the gorilla head for a blond wig and finally
starts to sing in a skintight dress: "Hot
Voodoo in my blood..." Schell wanted
to talk with her about men, women and love
for his documentary "Marlene."
She rudely cut him short. It is as simple
as that, she said, "They call it penis
envy, you know.... They are lacking this
thing, and that's the only problem there
is." This rigidity, the peremptory rejection
of her own feelings determined her whole
life. The men who loved her most -- Sternberg,
Maurice Chevalier, Erich Maria Remarque and
Jean Gabin -- parted from her with bitterness.
Rudolf Sieber, however, the father of her
daughter, who was a chicken farmer in the
San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, was
married to her until he died. She thus preserved
what was most precious to her: her autonomy.
Film historians are still trying to figure
out to what extent Hollywood stars actually
exposed their individual personalities, and
how much of their public image was just make-believe,
masquerade and make-up. In Dietrich's case,
it's a moot question. Her character was made
for the movie industry. She brought the German
civil service mentality with its strict separation
between job and private life to Hollywood.
Her father, a police officer who had died
early, was a prime example of this spirit.
She was the type of actress the studios wanted:
reliable, discreet and professional. She
was never late and would not give up until
a scene was "in the can."
In one of the closing shots of "The
Scarlet Empress," her daughter Maria
Riva says, she had to pull on a heavy, steel
crucifix to suggest the ringing of a bell.
Sternberg had her repeat the scene 50 times,
until the metal had cut open her thighs.
Dietrich ordered a bottle of alcohol, went
to her dressing room, poured it on her legs
and went home. That evening, stone-faced,
she prepared goulash with egg noodles for
Sternberg, his favorite dish.
At the same time she did not bother to hide
her private inclinations from the public.
She came to Hollywood as a mother and left
as a grandmother; in between, she had enough
lovers to start her own football league.
"It took more than one man to change
my name to Shanghai Lily," she says
in "Shanghai Express," a line that
echoed through her own life. Yet she was
never let herself be infected with the fatalism
with which Sternberg infused her characters.
When she was tired of the opposite sex, she
resorted to her own. The kiss on the mouth
that she gives to a breathless female extra
as Amy Jolly in "Morocco" (1930)
before throwing the woman's flower at Gary
Cooper was Dietrich's comment on Hollywood's
sexual cliches.
It is precisely because she never surrendered
completely that she played so effectively
with other people's desires. Sexuality was
her remedy for a life spent alone, a state
of affairs she never really wanted to change.
"You're never lonely when you're reading,"
she told Schell, but the book to cure so
much loneliness will undoubtedly never be
written. When she wrote out Rainer Maria
Rilke's poem "Fall Day" from memory,
she changed the title to "Loneliness"
and the words "wander restlessly"
to "walk alone," the way she walked
so many of her life's paths.
In the mid-1930s, early talking cinema suffered
a crisis. Only now, the technological revolution
that had begun with the introduction of sound
tracks also effected the images. The picturesque
element, a relic from the age of silent movies,
faded in importance, and a more functional
narrative style established itself. The big
stars that shone most brightly during the
era of the early talkies began to fade.
In 1937, American movie theater owners placed
an advertisement in newspapers that called
Dietrich "box-office poison" --
along with Garbo, Joan Crawford and Katharine
Hepburn. Dietrich, in turn, did what Garbo
was unable to do: She reinvented herself.
In "Destry Rides Again" (1939),
she engages in a saloon fight with James
Stewart that is unequaled in movie history.
With this film, finally and fully, Lola Lola,
the tough-and-funny performer from the "Blue
Angel" club, arrived in America.
But after "Golden Earrings" (1947),
Marlene Dietrich stopped relying on luck.
She made fewer movies and only with the best
directors: Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock,
Fritz Lang, Orson Welles. After her appearance
as a German general's widow in Stanley Kramer's
"Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961),
she would not accept any more major roles.
Seventeen years later, she stepped in front
of a camera again for one day of shooting
to sing the title song of David Hemmings'
period picture "Just a Gigolo."
Her career thus ended the way it began: with
a song.
"If I were granted a wish, I wouldn't
know what to ask for, a bad time or a good
time." Dietrich recorded the Friedrich
Hollaender song containing this lyric twice,
in 1930 and again in 1960. Listening to both
versions today is like listening to an audial
archive of the century just passed. Some
voices arouse emotion or bring a landscape
to life, but Dietrich's voice is a landscape
in itself, a vessel containing times gone
by. Between the two recordings, she witnessed
a war, the loss and destruction of her homeland,
an unpleasant return to Berlin and many years
of drifting about the globe. All these events
left their mark, and when she sings, her
whole personality emerges: the legend and
the mortal human in one.
"Even if she had nothing but her voice,
she could break your heart," Hemingway
once said. This may be an exaggeration, but
only a small one.
When Dietrich died, the Berlin foundation
Deutsche Kinemathek was able to acquire her
personal effects. The symbolic meaning of
this transaction has been acknowledged quite
often, but the material value may be even
more significant: The 200 boxes and cases
that the old lady from Paris left to posterity
not only tell the story of an actress's life,
but a history of cinematography. Numerous
personal photographs, dresses and accessories
-- some of which can be seen in the permanent
exhibition at the Berlin Film Museum -- illustrate
the varying conceptions of beauty that held
sway between the 1930s and the 1960s, as
well as the collapse of the traditional studio
system within the film industry.
The pictures from the months of war and immediately
afterward, when Dietrich was part of the
entertainment corps of the U.S. armed forces,
may be the most moving. They show a happy
woman amid dirt and misery, between tanks,
rubble, soldiers and refugees. She is happy
because she has found a role that lets her
take part in a life that, previously, she
has only been allowed to portray. "If
I were granted a wish, I would ask for a
little happiness. For if I were too happy,
I would long for sadness."
In the closing scene of "Touch of Evil"
(1958), unfortunately the only movie she
ever made with Welles, Dietrich stands on
a bridge across the Rio Grande as brothel
madam Tanya, delivering a eulogy for corrupt
sheriff, played by Welles himself, who has
just bled to death in the river below her.
"He was a strange man," Tanya says,
"but what does it matter what you say
about people?"
Dietrich was a strange woman, but at the same time, she was the best thing Germany contributed to movies in the past century. Apart from the characters and costumes, the fans and furs of Lola Lola, Frenchy, Amy Jolly, Concha Perez, Bijou Blanche, the swan coat and the "nude dress" of her casino performances, the top hats and spangled gowns, one important thing will remain: the spirit of the woman who wore them.
Dec. 23
Die Welt
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| Die Dietrich ganz glamouros im Jahre 1937, aufgenomen von George Hurrel Foto: AP |
Nach den 100 Buchern, die jeder Deutsche gelesen haben sollte, ist es hochste Zeit fur eine andere Bildungs-Liste: das Dutzend Marlene-Dietrich-Filme, das man gesehen haben muss, um Paroli bieten zu konnen (wetten, dass Reich-Ranicki nicht alle kennt!). Unsere Hitparade beginnt bei der Zwolf und endet beim Spitzenreiter.
Nr. 12: "Marlene" (1999). Man kann dem Marlene-Mythos huldigen, ihn zerpflucken, ironisch kommentieren. Aber eines hatte Joseph Vilsmaier vermeiden mussen: Ihr Leben zur Seifenoper herabzuwurdigen. Traurig und zeittypisch zugleich, dass dies der einzige Film zu ihrem Hundertsten ist, der zur Hauptsendezeit gezeigt wird. Katja Flint halt sich tapfer in der Titelrolle. (27.12., 20.15, ZDF)
Nr. 11: "The Devil is a Woman" (1935). Sternbergs "letzter Tribut" an sein Geschopf, und der einzige Film, von dem Marlene sich eine Kopie aufbewahrt hat, weil er die vollkommene Zusammenfassung einer einzigartigen Partnerschaft war. Besessen feilte Sternberg an jedem einzelnen Bild, und das Ergebnis nannte ein Kritiker "gefrorene Kunst, durch deren Herz kein Blut fliest". (27.12., 0.10, BR)
Nr. 10: "Marlene" (1983). Als die Dietrich sich nicht mehr fotografieren lies, kam Maximilian Schell mit dem Tonband in ihre Wohnung, entlockte ihr Kommentare zur Karriere und legte diese unter alte Filmausschnitte. Eine respektvoll-kritische Annaherung an einen Mythos. (27.12., 23.00, ARD)
Nr. 9: "Zeugin der Anklage" (1957). Anfangs als virtuose Fingerubung Billy Wilders mit Stars jenseits ihres Zenits unterschatzt, hat sich "Zeugin" zu Jedermanns Lieblings-Wiederholungsfilm entwickelt. Wilder spielt listig mit dem Image seiner Akteure; Marlene ist die kuhle Blonde, das ordinare Biest, die liebende Frau und die rachende Furie - alles in einem. (25.12., 23.10, ARD und 26.12., 21.50, BR)
Nr. 8: "Shanghai-Express" (1932). Dietrich als Dame mit schlechtem Ruf inmitten kunterbunter Charaktere auf gefahrlicher Zugfahrt von Peking nach Shanghai: Die perfekte Szenerie fur Marlene im hinreisenden schwarzen Body Dress, mit Pelz und den Schwanzfedern mexikanischer Kampfhahne. (25.12., 23.55, BR)
Nr. 7: "Das Urteil von Nurnberg" (1961). In Stanley Kramers Film uber die Kriegsverbrecherprozesse spielt Marlene das, was sie gepragt (eine Frau mit preusischer Erziehung) und das, was sie bekampft hat (ein Mitglied der deutschen Kriegerkaste).
Nr. 6: "Eine auswartige Affare" (1948). Drei Jahre nach Kriegsende: eine bissige Satire auf Sieger und Besiegte, und Wilder und Dietrich kehren in ihr geliebtes, zertrummertes Berlin zuruck. Und Marlene singt wieder im Nachtclub, und Hollander begleitet sie wieder und sie ist so verfuhrerisch, dass es am Ende funf GI's braucht, um sie abzufuhren. (26.12., 23.05, BR)
Nr. 5: "Blonde Venus" (1932). Nie war Marlene extravaganter: vom Gorilla-Kostum in den Dschungel-Mini mit blonder Perucke in einen weisen Frack mit Zylinder. Von Sternberg streichelt ihre kalte Schonheit mit jeder Einstellung, und Cary Grant erliegt zurecht ihrem "Hot Voodoo". (lief am 22.12.)
Nr. 4: "Perlen zum Gluck" (1936). Der Film, der Dietrich vom exotischen Vogel zum amerikanischen Star verwandelte: Bei Lubitsch ist sie nicht mehr die kuhle Unnahbare, sondern eine elegante, freche Juwelendiebin mit ironischem Funkeln in ihren blauen Augen. (lief am 23.12.)
Nr. 3: "Der grose Bluff" (1939). Schon wieder eine Marlene-Hautung: Auf die Frau von Welt folgte die fluchende Saloon-Mieze mit Herz aus Gold, die sich mit James Stewart prugelt (und den Heldentod stirbt). Wer behauptet, Madonna sei die Erfinderin des Sich-Ewig-Wandelns? (24.12., 22.55, WDR und 25.12., 23.15, ORB)
Nr. 2: "Die scharlachrote Kaiserin" (1934). Ein einzigartiges Fest fur Sternbergs Kamera: Er schwelgt in den dusteren Hallen und Treppen des Kreml, im Kerzenschimmer der endlosen Tafeln und den Zobelkostumen von Marlene alias Katharina die Grose. Grell, grausam und so innovativ, dass man noch heute staunt. (26. 12., 23.45, BR)
Nr. 1: "Der blaue Engel" (1930). Quelle und Herzstuck des Mythos: Marlene hat lange behauptet, dies sei ihr erster Film gewesen, obwohl sie davor schon 17 Stummfilme absolviert hatte. Am Abend der triumphalen Berliner Premiere stieg sie in den Zug nach Hollywood. (26.12., 22.55, ARD)
A Photographer Remembers
By Christine Fischer-Defoy
Berlin photographer Arno Fischer calls the
series of five images his "first and
only picture story." They were taken
on and behind the stage during rehearsal
and a concert that Marlene Dietrich gave
in Moscow on May 21, 1964. "Arrival
-- rehearsal -- concert -- bow -- thank you.
Isn't that a story?" he asks, describing
them today.
In 1964, Fischer was a top photographer for
the East German magazine SIBYLLE. But it was the publication Magazin that commissioned him for the report on
Moscow's fashion scene that took him to Russia.
Suddenly a rumor began to spread at the hotel:
Dietrich would give a concert in Moscow.
Magazin chief editor Hilde Eisler pulled some strings
and got two tickets for the evening. Fischer
packed his cameras and went out looking for
Marlene. He managed to slip into the final
rehearsal and into the dressing room of the
star, who was then 62. At the concert, he
sat in the 10th row. But he chose not to
capture everything he saw: "She suddenly
looked so old backstage that I didn't want
to photograph her then. It would have been
degrading," he remembers.
The photographs were eventually published
in Magazin, and Eisler sent copies to Dietrich in Paris.
The reply was quick: "I just love the
picture of my hands and also the one where
I bow. Please, help me. Would it be possible
to buy the negatives?????? Again: Thank you
very much. Yours, Marlene Dietrich."
In February 1965, Eisler received another
letter from Paris, in which Dietrich asked
for the negatives of Fischer's photos again,
as she would like to use them on a record
cover: "Please, reply this time."
Apparently Eisler's reply to her first letter
had been lost on its way from East Berlin
to Paris -- not an unusual thing during the
Cold War.
Eisler promised to ask Fischer for new prints.
Five days later, she received a letter from
Paris: "The picture of my hands (my
favorite photo) is so beautiful that I thought
it might be a good idea to make a second
negative, so it can be used in other publications
besides newspapers. My best wishes to you
and Mr. Arno Fischer. Marlene Dietrich."
On April 4, 1965, Fischer finally wrote a
letter to the star himself: "Most honorable
Frau Dietrich, Hilde Eisler has informed
me that you would like to have a duplicate
negative of one of the photos that I took
during your performance in Moscow. Enclosed
with this letter, you will find the desired
negative. Should the photo be published,
I already approve of your suggestion. Yours
faithfully, Arno Fischer." That was
the end of this East-West correspondence.
Fischer never received a direct reply.
The mystery why Marlene Dietrich was so interested
in the negative of her "favorite photo"
solves itself when we carefully look at the
prints among her personal belongings: With
a blue pen, she corrected her protruding
waistline, which was shining through her
skintight stage dress.
Apart from that, the negative was mirrored.
On the new prints, which were copied a dozen
times, we see a slim Dietrich who bows to
the left instead of the right like on the
original. One of these -- now professionally
retouched -- photos carries her inscription:
"DIETRICH'S FAVORITE PHOTO, MOSCOW ON
STAGE."
Dec. 23